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HARUWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



which the sea waves worked. Unfortunately, 

 owing to the want of limestone or very calcareous 

 rocks, these caves, as a rule, present none of that 

 stalagiiite deposit which has elsewhere served 

 so abundantly to cover over and preserve the 

 remains of the ancient denizens of our country 

 with traces of the presence of man himself. The 

 caves usually open directly upon the coast, with 

 free exposure to the air, so that their floors show 

 nothing but damp boulders and pools of water from 

 the drip of the roof. Recently, however, a remark- 

 able exception to these ordinary conditions has 

 been observed on the wild cliff line to the south- 

 west of the bay of Kirkcudbright ; the Silurian 

 strata are there traversed with strings and veins of 

 calcite along lines of joint and fracture, and at one 

 point where an old sea cave occurs, the walls and floor 

 at the cave mouth, and for a few yards inwards, 

 have a coating of solid calcareous matter. Beneath 

 this coating in the substance of the breccia, which 

 extends across the cave mouth, as well as through- 

 out the cave earth behind the breccia, a great 

 quantity of bones, with traces of human occupation, 

 has been found. A systematic investigation of the 

 cave, commenced last autumn, is being carried on 

 under the direction of Mr. A. J. Corrie and Mr. W. 

 Bruce-Clark, the discoverers of the osseous layer. 

 At the present time the following, among other 

 remains, have been noted : bones of ox, red-deer, 

 goat, horse, pig, pine-martin, rabbit, water-mole, 

 and other small rodents, together with numerous 

 remains of birds, and a few frog and fisli bones. 

 Intermingled with these occur fragments of bronze, 

 bone needles, and other bone implements, to the 

 number of more than twenty. One piece of 

 worked stone (a fragment of greywacke) has been 

 found, but as yet not a single chip of flint. A full 

 account of the cave will be publisiied as soon as the 

 investigations are completed. 



"Coal and Coal Plants." — This is the title of 

 one of the evening discourses of the British Associa- 

 tion Meeting at Bradford, which commences on the 

 17th of September. The lecturer is Professor 

 Williamson, who will occupy the Presidential chair 

 in the place of Dr. Joule, who is obliged to resign 

 the Presidency on account of ill health. 



New Species of Stromatopoka.— Professor 

 H. Alleyne Nicholson has described four new 

 species of Stromatopora from the Silurian and 

 Devonian formations of Western Canada. The 

 afiiuities of this singular genus have always been 

 esteemed uncertain, though there has been a ten- 

 dency to regard it as referable either to the fora- 

 minifera or to the sponges, or as constituting a 

 connecting link between these two orders of 

 Rhizopoda. Prom the structure of the above new 

 species. Professor Nicholson thinks they show 



certain points of relationship to sponges, which 

 have not been noticed in the species already re- 

 corded by palaeontologists. 



Evidence oe Inckeased Cold in the Cromer 

 PoREST Bed.— In Sir Charles Lyell's new edition 

 of the "Anticiuity of Man," he says, "It occurred 

 to Mr. Nathorst, a skilful Swedisli geologist, who 

 visited the Cromer section in the autumn of 1872, 

 that the lignite beds of the laminated sands and 

 clays ought to exhibit in their vegetable remains a 

 transition from the comparatively mild climate of 

 the Forest Bed to the severe cold indicated by the 

 Till; and he was fortunate enough to find the 

 remains of plants becoming more stunted as they 

 occurred higher in the beds, until within half a 

 foot of the boulder clay he found Salix polaris, now 

 only known within the Arctic circle, together with 

 a moss which has been referred by the eminent 

 bryologist Berggreu to Hyp/mm turgescens, an 

 arctic moss only found living in temperate latitudes 

 on the extreme heights of the Alps." 



New Species of Oreodon.— Lord Walsingham 

 has brought home from the Miocene deposits of 

 Nebraska, a series of mammalian remains embedded 

 m masses of the original rock, which turn out to be 

 a new species of Oreodon, larger than any hitherto 

 described from America. " The deposits of the 

 Mauvaises Terres, Nebraska," says Professor Leidy, 

 "are remarkable for the great quantity of fossil 

 remains of mammals and turtles they have yielded 

 without further exploration than picking them up 

 from the surface of the country. Detached from 

 the neighbouring soft and readily disintegrating 

 rocks, the fossils lie strewn about, and have often 

 attracted the attention of the least curious of those 

 who have traversed this district. Many of the 

 loose fossils have gradually been collected by 

 travellers and others, so that few of a conspicuous 

 character now remain. Of those colhcted, by far 

 the greater part have been submitted to my in- 

 vestigations, and these have amounted to the 

 enormous quantity of between three and four tons 

 in weight." 



NOTES AND aUERIES. 



Swans and Cygnets.— In your number of 

 Science-Gossip for Jul}', I notice that one of 

 your correspondents, Mr. Alchin, inquires whether 

 it is usual for swans to carry cygnets on their back. 

 1 have myself often observed this method of 

 transit by the parent birds, but I have never heard 

 any good reason assigned. A few weeks ago a black- 

 necked swan {Cijgntis nigricollis) hatched some 

 young ones in the Zoological Gardens, and I have 

 often witnessed the latter carried on the back of the 

 mother, and a very pretty sight it was. The entire 

 family were here in a tank or small pond in the 

 gardens, where the wati r is virtually stagnant. 



